


Welcome(d) to Atlas

by Liara_90



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, Comedy, Crack, Ensemble Cast, Gen, Inspired by a Clip, Interrogation, Light-Hearted, One Shot, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Post-Volume 6 (RWBY), Writing Exercise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 21:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18081584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: They made it to Atlas. Now they have to make it through Customs and Immigration.RWBYVolume 7 Episode 0.5.





	Welcome(d) to Atlas

* * *

“...You know, you make the trip up to Atlas over and over, but you never get used to that view,” mused Maria Calavera, as the floating city came into view, appearing through the clouds like a heavenly kingdom of lore.

Weiss leaned forward, resting a hand on the pilot’s chair. While her teammates were universally slack-jawed at the site before them, the more analytical parts of her mind had already reasserted themselves. Her brow furrowed as her eyes swept the horizon, her pulse quickening as they did.

“ _Weiss_ ,” Ruby asked, the first to pick up on her partner’s nervousness, “what is it?”

“The Atlas Air Fleet...” Weiss replied, her voice flat, almost _numb_ from the shock. “I knew all of our ships were called back, but…”

“They're set up like they're expecting an attack…” Qrow said, reaching the same conclusion Weiss had.

The hiss of the radio startled them all from their trance. “ _Manta 5-1_ ,” a crisp, female voice declared, “ _welcome home_.”

* * *

TWENTY MINUTES LATER

The holding room had never looked quite so… _colorful_.

The Kingdom of Atlas Customs Authority (KACA) officer observed the room’s inhabitants through a closed-circuit television system, sizing up the motley crew. He had, he could already tell, drawn the short straw with this lot. A mishmash of students, Huntsmen, and civvies, all in a hijacked military airship. Armed to the teeth with the most eclectic assortment of weapons he’d ever come across - weapons which were, mercifully, currently sealed away for Processing & Inspection.

His coworker dropped a thick stack of files on the desk beside him, letting out a gasp of relief as he did. Yeah, this was going to be a ‘fun’ one.

“Ran their names through the system, I take it?”

“Yeah, verified whatever credentials they had on ‘em.” The second officer gave the stack of outputs a gentle pat. “Ten files in total. Most of their IDs check out, but there’s a lot of…. _strange stuff_.”

“I hear that.” He took a sip of his coffee, which was disappointingly cold, and picked the first file off the stack. “Well, let’s get started with-”

* * *

“-Mr. Qrow Branwen,” he began, taking a seat in the metal chair opposite Qrow. The room he was in was stark - two chairs and a wide metal table, illuminated with harsh fluorescent bulbs overhead. The only noticeable feature was a massive mirror spanning most of the length of the east wall, through which his coworkers were observing them. “We’ll try to get through this with _Atlesian efficiency_ , as they say.”

Qrow made a vague grunt in reply, propping his feet up on the table.

The officer flipped open the folder containing Qrow’s case file, skimming the documents with a practiced eye. “Let’s see… _Qrow Branwen_. Graduated from Beacon Academy... qualified as a Huntsman... your professional licenses are up-to-date in all Four Kingdoms… Well, your weapons license for the Kingdom of Atlas expired last month, but given the current circumstances we can certainly make some exceptions… Everything seems to be in order.” He continued flipping through the pages, nodding approvingly as he read. 

“Now then, Mr. Branwen, I understand that you’re the leader of this group?”

“Zzzzwhat now?” Qrow asked.

The officer blinked. “The leader of this group. Are you… _responsible_ for them?”

“Am I _responsible_?” Qrow repeated, squinting his eyes.

“Responsible for _the group_ ,” the officer repeated, raising his voice slightly. Qrow winced, as if in pain. “Are you… feeling alright, Mr. Branwen?”

Qrow sighed. “Honestly, not really. _Pretty sure_ I’m going through some kind of withdrawal,” he said, rubbing his forehead, where a powerful headache was raging underneath.

“ _Withdrawal_?”

“From the alcohol, I mean,” Qrow clarified, tilting his head back and up towards the ceiling. “Ahhh dammit I forgot how bad this sucked.” Both Qrow and the officer looked vaguely nauseous, albeit for rather different reasons.

“Would you like… some… water?” the officer asked, cautiously.

Qrow let out a groan. “I’d _like_ a double-shot of your cheapest Atlesian vodka,” he groused. “But I'll take some painkillers.”

The officer rose slowly from his seat. “I’ll… see what I can find for you,” he muttered, excusing himself.

The leg of Qrow’s chair snapped, sending the Huntsman tumbling to the floor.

* * *

“Now then, Miss Rose, I understand that you’re the leader of this group?”

Ruby rubbed the back of her neck. “Well, um, I guess kinda by default, yeah?”

“Mm-hm. It says here that you're a student at Beacon Academy, and a Huntress-in-training?”

Ruby let out a nervous laugh. “Heh-heh, yeah, still very much _in-training_ ,” she answered, modestly.

“Very good.” The agent checked something somewhere in Ruby’s file. “ _Da-da-da-da-daaaa_ …. This is just a formality, but are you traveling with any dependents?”

“Just my Crescent Rose,” Ruby offered, with a small smile.

“Uhh….” the agent flipped back through several pages of paperwork, brow furrowed in concentration. “I’m sorry how old is, uh, Crescent?”

Ruby blinked. All the information on her weapon should’ve been accessible through her student license. “She’s about... four or five years old?”

“Is that _four_ or _five_ , Miss Rose?” asked the interviewer, hurriedly filling out a brand-new form.

Ruby shrugged. “I don’t know, like, the _exact_ date…” she replied, twiddling her thumbs.

“But she _is…_ ” the agent glanced up at her, “... _yours_?”

“Well, _duh_ , whose else would she be?” Ruby replied, a titch defensively. “ _Well_ …” she cocked her head, “I suppose she kind of looks like Uncle Qrow’s, too.”

More furious scribbling. “I’m sorry, is Mister Branwen also traveling with a, um…”

“Oh yeah!” Ruby answered, enthusiastically. “s’called ‘Harbinger’.” Ruby let of an airy sigh. “Hope they didn’t get too banged up when you guys put them in the evidence lockers.”

The agent glanced at the mirror on the wall, through which his colleagues were watching with growing agitation. “Could someone please get the rep from Child Protective Services on the line?”

Ruby fell out of her chair.

* * *

“ _Schnee_ … you wouldn’t happen to be related to _Jacques_ Schnee, President of the Schnee Dust Company, would you?”

Weiss bit her tongue. “Yes, actually. He’s my father.”

“I see…” The officer began scribbling furiously in his notebook. “Well then, Miss Schnee, I only have one question for you.” He stood up, looming over the young woman.

“Would you like coffee or tea?”

* * *

“ _Belladonna…_ you wouldn’t happen to be related to _Ghira_ Belladonna, Chieftain of Menagerie, would you?”

Blake steadied her nerves. “Yes, actually. He’s my father.”

“Former High Leader of the Faunus terrorist group known as the White Fang?”

She bit her tongue. “It wasn’t really a _terrorist group_ when he started it, it was an activist organization advocating for better rights for Faunus throughout…”

The officer loosened his tie. “Get comfortable, ma’am. We’re going to be a while.”

* * *

“Yang Xiao Long,” began the officer, reading the name printed in boldface type at the top of the file. “Yang Xiao Long. Yang, Yang, Yang…”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” replied Yang, with a weak laugh and a forced smile.

“I feel like I’ve heard that name before,” the officer continued, skimming the remaining pages in her file.

Yang shrugged. “It’s a common name in Vale.” Well, _not really_ , but she was getting a queasy feeling in her gut.

The agent glanced at the photocopy of her Beacon student ID card, then back at the woman sitting across from him, then back at the ID card. “You look _very_ familiar, for some reason.”

“I get that a lot,” Yang said, agreeably, as her fingers stroked a few loose strands of her hair. Again, she really _didn’t_ , but this wasn’t the place for that.

The officer squinted at her for a long, _long_ moment, before shrugging and returning to the file. Yang breathed a small sigh of relief.

“So, Miss Xiao Long, it says here you entered Beacon the same year as your sister, after graduating from Signal Academy on Patch.”

“Yup. Lil’ sis really showed me up, skipping two whole years of combat training.” She forced another smile, this one self-deprecating. Anything to get a spark of empathy out of the soulless bureaucrats running this place.

The interviewer offered her a sympathetic smile, which Yang chalked up as a win. “That’s family for you. Moving on,” he flipped to the next sheet of the page, “you are officially authorized to _BY THE GODS YOU’RE THAT CRAZY CHICK WHO KNEECAPPED THE GUY IN THE VYTAL TOURNAMENT!”_

*

Back in the waiting room, Ruby jumped in her chair as an explosive profanity shook the ground beneath her.

* * *

“Jaune Arc, freshman student at Beacon Academy, Huntsman-program, student number 24110, is that correct?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Jaune, shuffled nervously in his seat.

“How is Beacon?” the officer asked, making small talk while he scribbled his notes in the case file. “My daughter, she’s fifteen now, but she has her heart set on going there.” He kept his eyes on the file, but smiled as he wrote. “I’m not sure if that’s changed, due to everything that’s happened in Beacon…”

“It’s a great school,” Jaune replied, wondering if this was part of the interrogation or just the ramblings of a low-level bureaucrat. Given that the man had the power to grant or deny him entry into Atlas, he figured he’d play nice. “The professors are amazing, the campus is beautiful, and you get just a _ton_ of practical field training.” He paused a beat. _“But_ I’ve heard great things about Atlas Academy, too, don’t get me wrong.”

“Uh-huh.” More scribbling. “According to your student ID card, it says you’re leader of a Team... J-N-P-R, is that correct?”

Jaune lowered his head. “ _Juniper_ , yeah. But it’s just _Junior_ now.”

The officer’s pen stopped flowing. “Oh? What happened to the _P_?”

*

“Could…. Could we get a box of tissues to holding room four, please? Make that… make that two boxes….”

* * *

“Could you tell us about your relationship with Ms. Valkyrie?” the officer asked, making a show of flipping through the pages in his memo.

Ren exhaled through his nose, with the gentleness of a summer breeze. “Nora is a friend of mine,” he explained, his voice as calm and composed as ever.

“Of course,” the officer replied in agreement. He leaned forward. “But is she, ah, _special_ , to you?”

Ren nodded. “All of my friends are special to me,” he answered, with that same look of supreme serenity on his face.

“I see.” The interviewer scribbled a quick note in his folder. “So, there is nothing…. _unusual_ about your relationship with Miss Valkyrie?”

Ren let slip the ghost of a smile. “I’d say all of my relationships are a little unusual,” he answered neatly, bumping his thumbs together. “We live in unusual times, after all.”

The officer let out a sigh, and flipped the folder shut. “Mr. Lie, I’m just trying to get enough biographical information to fill out the paperwork,” he said, the faint note of a plea slipping in to his voice. “Could you _please_ just tell me if the two of you are in a relationship?”

Ren’s brow furrowed, the smallest hint of crossness on his face. “I don’t see how that’s any of the Kingdom’s business.”

* * *

“We are _way_ past ‘ _in a relationship_ ’,” Nora declared, pounding a fist on the table for emphasis. The officer scrambled to catch his pen before it rolled off the edge.

“I’m sorry, what do you mean by-” He blinked, suddenly confronted with a young woman holding her hands about half a foot apart. “Do you mean Mr. Lie’s-”

“- _every night_!” Nora shouted, shaking her hands for emphasis. Then she slumped back in her chair. “‘Course it’s _kind of_ a pain trying to get ‘together-together’ time with the whole darn gang around,” she continued, gesturing with her thumb back towards the waiting room. “Can’t get a room to ourselves unless a train gets derailed first.”

“I see…” the officer said, though he really didn’t.

“You’d _think_ having to fight for our lives every other day would be kind of a buzzkill but if anything it’s the opposite,” Nora rambled, rubbing her chin contemplatively. “I mean it wasn’t until that whole run-in with the Nuckelavee back in Anima that we finally started booping, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure that I…”

Nora leaned forward, conspiratorially. “Let’s just say that Magnhild isn’t the _only_ thing a-hammerin’ these days.”

“...Excuse me?”

“Even if those airship bathrooms do _not_ have a lot of room to boop in.”

The officer stood up. “I think I’ve heard… _more than enough_ ,” he declared, scrawling his signature over whatever box would expedite Nora Valkyrie out of his custody.

* * *

“And you listed your occupation in Box 17 as ‘Farmhand’, is that correct, Mr. Pine?”

Oscar nodded. “Yeah. My aunt’s farm, in Mistral.” He swallowed, nervously. “It’s mostly subsistence farming, but we usually make enough extra to sell in town on market day.” Oscar sat upright. “Oh, shoot, I totally forgot to check that I visited a farm on that Custom form! I swear it was an accident! It’s just that I don’t really think of my own farm as, well, _visiting_ a farm, and I have a lot of stuff going on in my head right now, and, and…”

The officer flashed his palms in a calming manner. “Don’t worry, Mr. Pine, we’ll let you amend it before you go.” He chuckled, returning to the file. “You seem like a perfectly normal kid. How did you get involved with Miss Rose and her group?”

Oscar deflated. “I really have no idea.”

* * *

“Miss Calavera… I’m afraid we don’t seem to have a record of you in any our databases,” at officer began, glancing at the paper-thin file beside him on the table. “Is this your first time in Atlas?”

“Hmpf, _Atlas_ ,” Maria snorted derisively, bouncing her feet against the legs of her chair. “What was wrong with _Mantle_? Perfectly good name, I always said. How on Remnant is anyone supposed to keep track of where their own two feet are if everyone keeps changing the maps on me.”

The officer exhaled, slowly, feeling the migraine being birthed by the conversation. “Let’s just get through this as painlessly as possible, ma’am. Could you give me the name of your male parent?” His pen hovered expectantly over Box 32(a) of the 1383(d) form.

Maria tilted her head. “My whatsit now?”

“Your parents?”

“Yes?”

“Which one was the male?”

“ _Ooooh_ ,” Maria hummed in comprehension, “you mean _Daddy_. Wonderful man. Taught me everything I knew, he did.”

The officer rubbed his forehead. “And what was his _name_?”

Maria looked like she’d been snapped back to reality. “Who’s name?”

“Your daddy.”

“Say again?” Maria asked, gesturing to her ear.

“What was your daddy’s name?” repeated the officer, speaking slower and louder.

“You’ll have to speak up, young man…”

“What’s the name of-”

“ _Louder_ , boy, I can’t hear-”

The officer slammed the file on the table. “ _Calavera! Who! Is! Your! Daddy?!”_

The room was filled with a long, extraordinarily awkward silence. Maria listened to the sound of the overhead fan blades spin in unhurried circles above them.

There was a knock on the door, and a second uniformed officer caught the attention of the first. “Uh… boss wants to speak with you.”

Maria fished around in her pockets for some nuts

* * *

The minutes ticked interminably by as Weiss Schnee waited for the Powers That Be to smooth the bureaucratic kinks out for her. She absolutely hated to rely on her name in this manner, but if they wanted to clear Customs & Immigration sometime in the next _year_ then it was pretty much the only weapon in their arsenal.

Weiss heard the door swing open behind her, and readied herself for another round of questions. She and her friends had stepped on _quite a few toes_ getting to here from Argus, and not even Schnees could wave away the bureaucracy entirety. “What is it this…”

Her sentence trailed off at the familiar cadence of the footfalls, the overwhelming confidence that every step resonated with.

“ _Winter_!”

Weiss bolted from her chair, scrambling to wrap her arms around her sister, propriety be damned. They hadn’t seen each other since before the Fall of Beacon, and Weiss felt tears bursting from her eyes as she _hugged_ with all her might.

“Welcome back to Atlas, Weiss,” Winter said, stroking her sister’s head. “I take it you’ve been… _busy_.”

Weiss nodded, through her face was still pressed into Winter’s torso.

After a few more strokes, Winter took the smallest of steps backwards, her hands gently guiding Weiss’ arms, unwrapping them. “I’ve used my Specialist clearance to bypass… well, _everything_ , basically. You and your… _acquaintances…”_ the word sounded distasteful on her tongue “...should be free to go.”

Weiss sniffled. “Thank you, Winter.”

“Oh, don’t thank me yet, Weiss,” Winter replied, gently guiding her sister by the arm, and leading the two of them out of the interrogation room.

“You have _no idea_ what kind of trouble you are in.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not particularly good at writing comedy, but this idea got stuck in my head, so here’s another crack at it. Hopefully someone enjoys it. The premise of this comes from the epic interrogation scene in the _[Firefly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_\(TV_series\))_ episode “[Bushwacked](https://firefly.fandom.com/wiki/Bushwhacked)”. Additional inspiration/theft comes from _[The Office](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Office_\(U.S._TV_series\))_ and _[Red vs. Blue](https://rvb.fandom.com/wiki/Omega)_.
> 
> As always, thank you for your readership. Please feel free to leave any comments, thoughts, feedback, or headcanons in the comments. Criticism is the only way I’ll ever get better as a writer. If you’d like to know more about me/my writing, feel free to hit up my [About](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com/about) page. I’m also active on [reddit](https://www.reddit.com/user/pvoberstein/overview), [Tumblr](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com/), and [MyAnimeList](https://myanimelist.net/profile/pvoberstein), and can be reached through any of the means on my [Contact](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/profile) page.


End file.
